The Perfume of the Lady in Black Read online

  ‘For him,’ she said. And then, her face contorted by some dreadful fear and her voice so shaken that one could not help but be reminded, despite oneself, of Brignolles’ dreadful words, she suddenly said: ‘Au revoir, my friends – or, rather, goodbye.’

  CHAPTER II

  Which reveals the changing moods of Joseph Rouletabille

  Returning alone from the station, I could not explain the moody sadness that seemed to weigh upon me.

  Ever since the Versailles trial, with which I had been so intimately involved, I had been very close to Professor Stangerson, his daughter and Robert Darzac. I ought to have been overjoyed at a development which was to ensure the happiness of all concerned. I thought that the absence of young Rouletabille from the station was the possible cause of some, at least, of the great unease which I felt.

  Rouletabille had always been treated by the Stangersons and by Darzac as a sort of knight-errant, a saviour, and this had been particularly so after Mathilde had left the convalescent home where she had undergone several months’ treatment for the nervous strain brought on by the tragedy. When she fully understood that without the shrewdness and devotion of this youngster her life and the lives of those dearest to her would have been wrecked, she became almost like a mother to him. She shared his confidences, everything he did had for her a strange interest, and she wanted to know more about Rouletabille than Rouletabille knew himself. She was especially curious, albeit discreetly, concerning his birth and childhood, on which matter the young man had always maintained a reserved and haughty silence.

  Despite Mlle Stangerson’s motherly attitude towards him, Rouletabille never emerged from his shell of reserve and, instead, affected an extreme politeness which was in striking contrast to the warmth and exuberance of spirits he had otherwise always shown in his likes and dislikes.

  I had more than once touched on this in my talks with Rouletabille, but he was evasive on the subject. While he always expressed the profoundest admiration and esteem for her – feelings, he declared, that he had never before felt for anyone else – as well as his readiness to make any sacrifice for her should the occasion arise, these deep feelings did not prevent the most inexplicable changes of mood. For instance, he had seemed overjoyed at receiving an invitation to spend a few days with the Stangersons at the little country place they had rented for the season at Chenneviéres, on the banks of the Marne, for the Stangersons would never again stay at Glandier. Yet, when the moment came to leave with me, he suddenly changed his mind and refused to go, even though this abrupt decision greatly wounded the Stangersons. I was obliged to go alone, leaving him in the dingy room he occupied in a little hotel on the Boulevard Saint Michel, on the corner of Rue Monsieur-le-Prince. I was naturally annoyed at the way in which on this, as on one or two other occasions, he had hurt Mlle Stangerson’s feelings without any good or apparent reason.

  I remember that, one Sunday, Mlle Stangerson, unable to make head nor tail of these moods of his, decided to beard the lion in his den and, accompanied by myself, went to his lodgings. We knocked, and, in reply to a mechanical ‘Come in,’ we opened the door and discovered Rouletabille hard at work, poring over some papers. As soon as he saw us, however, he turned so pale that I seriously thought he would faint.

  ‘Good heavens!’ cried Mlle Stangerson, running towards him. ‘Whatever …’

  But before she had time to ask any questions, before, indeed, she had time to reach the table, Rouletabille had covered the papers with a leather writing case. Mathilde had, of course, seen this movement and stopped in some surprise.

  ‘We’re obviously disturbing you,’ she said, in a tone of mild reproach.

  ‘No, I’ve finished. I’ll show you at some later date. It is a masterpiece in five acts, for which I have not yet managed to find a suitable dénouement.’

  He smiled feebly and, in a moment or two, was once more quite master of himself, and began, in teasing fashion, to thank us for coming to seek him out in his solitude and finally insisted on taking us out to dinner at a little restaurant in the Latin Quarter. And what a jolly time we had of it! Rouletabille had telephoned Robert Darzac, who joined us for coffee. Darzac was at that time quite well, and the vile Brignolles had not yet made his appearance. On that beautiful, quiet summer evening near the Luxembourg Gardens we were as happy as children.

  Before leaving Mlle Stangerson, a boyishly penitent Rouletabille asked her to forgive him his occasional outbursts of bad temper and moroseness. He did have a very bad temper, he declared, however hard he tried to keep it under control. Mathilde forgave him in motherly fashion, kissing him as she might have done a little child. Robert Darzac gave his forgiveness too.

  Rouletabille was so affected that he could not say a word to me as I walked home with him and, at his door, he all but fell upon my neck. What a strange young man, I thought to myself. If I had only known… How I reproach myself now for my occasional harsh judgements of him during that time.

  I was thinking about all this, rather sad at heart, on my way back from the Gare de Lyon, wondering where I should find Rouletabille now, in order to give him Mathilde’s letter. I thought I could do no better than to go to his hotel, and, if he wasn’t in, to leave the letter there. As I went into his hotel, I was astonished to find my manservant carrying my travelling bag.

  ‘What the …’

  But the good man declared he knew nothing about it and that I must ask M. Rouletabille.

  I went up to his rooms four steps at a time and found him calmly and carefully packing his bags, for in the small things of life, Rouletabille was most punctilious and detested anything remotely resembling Bohemianism. Until his pyjamas and hairbrushes were properly packed, there was no getting a word out of him, but when the packing was at a sufficiently advanced stage, he informed me, with great aplomb, that since I was free and since his newspaper, L’Epoque, had granted him four days’ leave, we were going to take an Easter holiday at the seaside. And in order to help me to get away more easily he had gone (at the precise moment, be it noted, when I was hunting for him all over Paris) to my house in Rue de Rivoli, and ordered my servant to get my bag ready and bring it over to Boulevard Saint Michel! Will I be forgiven when I say that I was absolutely furious?

  To begin with, I did not in the least want to go to the seaside in the present cold and dreary weather and, moreover, I should have liked at least to be consulted as to whether I wished to absent myself from home for the best part of a week. The only reply Rouletabille vouchsafed me was to take my bag in one hand, his own bag in the other, push me out into the corridor and down the stairs, thence into a cab which was waiting at the door, and, finally, into a first-class compartment on the Tréport train.

  He barely spoke until we got to Creil, and then it was to say:

  ‘Why don’t you give me the letter you’ve got for me?’

  He had evidently guessed that Mlle Darzac, hurt and anxious that he had not been there to say goodbye, had written to him. Well, there was nothing very clever in that. I replied:

  ‘Because you don’t deserve it.’

  And then I opened the floodgates of my wrath at being treated in that cavalier fashion. I regret to say that he did not take the slightest notice of my homily. He did not even try to excuse himself, which made me even angrier. Finally, of course, I had to give him the letter. He looked at it, smelled the perfume with which it was scented, and then, instead of reading it, turned, with a look of sadness in his eyes, and looked out of the window.

  ‘Well, why don’t you read it?’

  ‘I won’t read it here, I’ll read it later.’ And he pointed in the direction of Tréport.

  It was already night when we arrived at Tréport, in the vilest of weathers. An icy wind from the sea swept over the promenade. The only sign of life was the Customs official, in a hooded, waterproof cloak, walking back and forth across the canal bridge. A few mournful gaslights flared and flickered in the wind, and in the distance we heard the echo of some Trépor
t housewife’s clogs as she hurried home. The only thing that kept us from falling into the dock on our way to the sole hotel that was still open was that we were amply warned of its presence by the stench rising from its inky black waters. As soon as we got to the hotel, Rouletabille ordered supper and a fire, and when this was done, I said:

  ‘Now perhaps you will deign to let me know why we have come to this miserable little hole of a place, unless it is for the specific purpose of killing us both off with either rheumatism or pleurisy.’

  For Rouletabille was at that moment coughing and shivering in the most alarming fashion. As soon as he had recovered his breath, he said:

  ‘I will tell you why we have come here. We have come here to find the perfume of the Lady in Black.’

  And that, for the moment, was all I could get out of him. The phrase, however, kept me thinking. So much so that, what with my own thoughts and with the wind thudding on the sand dunes outside the town and whistling down the narrow streets inside, I did not get much sleep that night.

  As I lay awake, I thought I heard my friend pacing up and down in the room beside me. I got up and opened his door. Despite the cold and the wind, he had opened his window and was standing in front of it, blowing kisses into the black night. I shut the door and discreetly retired to bed.

  The following morning, I was awoken by Rouletabille, whose face was a picture of terror. He handed me a telegram which had been sent to him from Bourg, and which, according to the instructions he had left, had been forwarded to him from Paris. Here is what it said:

  Come at once. Do not lose a minute. We have abandoned our trip to the East and are going to join Stangerson in Menton. He is with the Rances, at Rochers Rouges. Please let this telegram remain a secret between us. No one must be alarmed. Pretend that you are coming to spend a holiday with us, anything you like, but for Heaven’s sake, come! Send me a telegram: Poste Restante, Menton. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Am waiting for you. Yours in desperation, Darzac.

  CHAPTER III

  The perfume

  ‘Well,’ I exclaimed, jumping out of bed, ‘I’m not in the least surprised.’

  ‘Didn’t you believe he was dead either?’ Rouletabille asked, with what seemed to be unwonted emotion, even allowing for the most pessimistic interpretation of M. Darzac’s message and all the possible horrors of the situation.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I replied. ‘It was so vital that he should appear to be dead, that he could easily afford to sacrifice a few papers in the Dordogne disaster. But what’s the matter? You look faint. Are you ill?’

  Rouletabille had sunk into a large armchair. He confessed, in a trembling voice, that he had not really believed him dead until the marriage ceremony was over. The young man could not reconcile himself to the idea that Larsan, had he been living, would have allowed a ceremony to take place that gave Mathilde Stangerson to M. Darzac. Larsan had merely to show himself to prevent the marriage going ahead and, however dangerous such a step might have been, he would not have hesitated to take that risk, knowing as he did Mlle Stangerson’s religious beliefs, and the fact that she would never have consented to give herself to another man while her first husband was still living, even though she was in every way legally free to do so. It would have been in vain to argue with her concerning the annulment of her first marriage according to French law. She would never have admitted any fact but this – that a priest had made her the wife of a scoundrel for ever.

  Wiping the sweat from his brow, Rouletabille continued:

  ‘Alas, my friend! Remember this, that in the eyes of Larsan “the vicarage has lost none of its charm nor the garden its brightness”.’

  I took Rouletabille’s hand. He was feverish. I tried to calm him, but he would not listen.

  ‘And now he has waited until after the wedding, until only a few hours after the wedding!’ he cried. ‘For, as far as I can see – and you agree with me, don’t you, Sainclair? – M. Darzac’s telegram can only mean one thing: the other man has come back!’

  ‘So it seems, but M. Darzac may be mistaken.’

  ‘Darzac isn’t a child to be frightened by shadows. However, we must hope against hope, mustn’t we, Sainclair, that he is mistaken? No, no, it isn’t possible! It would be too dreadful, too dreadful! Oh, Sainclair, it would be too dreadful…’

  I had never seen Rouletabille so upset, not even under the most trying circumstances at Glandier. He stood up and walked feverishly about the room, picking up various objects at random and putting them down again. Every now and then, he would look at me and say:

  ‘Too dreadful! Oh, it’s too dreadful!’

  I remarked that there was no sense in working himself up to such a pitch merely on the receipt of a telegram which proved nothing, a mere telegram, the sending of which might very well have been prompted by a passing hallucination. Besides, I added, this was a time when we needed all our wits about us and he must not give way to such terror, inexcusable, surely, in a lad of his mettle.

  ‘Inexcusable! Really, Sainclair! Inexcusable!’

  ‘Look here, my dear fellow, you frighten me What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. The situation is unbearable! Why isn’t he dead?’

  ‘How do you know that he isn’t?’

  ‘Because, don’t you see, Sainclair – hush! be quiet, be quiet, Sainclair! – because, don’t you see, if he is alive, then I would rather be dead!’

  ‘You’re a fool, a madman! If he is alive, all the more reason why you should be alive to defend her.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it, Sainclair! You’re quite right. Thank you! You have spoken the only word that can make me live – “her”! Can you believe it? I was thinking only of myself – only of myself!’

  Rouletabille gave a horrible laugh. I put my arm around him. I begged him to tell me why he was so frightened and why he spoke of his own death, and why he laughed in that horrible way.

  ‘Speak as you would to a friend, to your best friend, Rouletabille, speak! Unburden yourself. Tell me your secret. Since it chokes you, let me know what it is. Open your heart to me.’

  Rouletabille put his hand on my shoulder and looked me squarely in the eyes. He stood for a long time like that, strangely absorbed, as if trying to see into the very depths of my heart, and then he said:

  ‘You shall know everything, Sainclair. You shall know as much as I do, and you, too, will be frightened, my friend, because you are kind, and I know that you care for me.’

  Then, just as I thought he was going to give vent to his emotions, he asked me for the railway timetable.

  ‘We shall start at one o’clock,’ he said. ‘There is no direct line between Eu and Paris in the wintertime. It will be seven o’clock before we arrive in Paris, but we shall have plenty of time to pack our trunks and catch the nine o’clock train for Marseilles and Menton.’

  He was carrying me off to Menton, as he had carried me off to Tréport. He knew that under our present circumstances I would refuse him nothing. Moreover, he was in such an excited state that I would have gone with him even if he had not asked me to. Besides, it was holiday time, and my business at the law courts did not require my immediate attention.

  ‘So we’re off to Eu?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. We shall board a train there. It’s only about half-an-hour’s drive from Tréport to Eu.’

  ‘We haven’t had much of a stay here,’ I remarked.

  ‘Enough, I hope,’ he said. ‘Long enough to serve the purpose for which I came, alas!’

  I thought of the perfume of the Lady in Black, and said no more. Had he not promised me that I would know everything? He led me along the pier. The wind was still blowing strongly, and we had to take refuge behind the light-house. He stood for a long time plunged in thought, looking out to sea, his eyes tight shut.

  ‘This was the end,’ he said at last. ‘I saw her for the last time here.’ He glanced towards the stone bench. ‘We sat there. She pressed me to her heart. I was a little fellow, nine years old. She
told me to stay there, on the bench, and then she went away, and I never saw her again. It was at night – a soft summer night – the prizes had all been given out. Oh, she wasn’t there when that happened, but I knew she would come in the evening! The sky was all stars, and it was so bright, I hoped to be able to see her face. But she drew down her veil and sighed. And then she went away. I never saw her again.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. What did you do? Did you stay on the bench after that?’

  ‘I wanted to, but the coachman came for me, and I went back.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Why, to the school, of course!’

  ‘Is there a school at Tréport?’

  ‘No, but there’s one at Eu. I went back to the school at Eu.’ He signed to me to follow him. ‘We’re going there now,’ he said. ‘How can I tell her? There have been too many storms.’

  Half an hour later we were at Eu. At the foot of Rue des Marronniers, our carriage rolled noisily across the cobbles of the cold, deserted square, while our coachman, cracking his whip with all his might, stirred up echoes in the slumbering little town with that strident music.

  Over the roof-tops came the sound of a clock striking – the school clock, Rouletabille told me. Then all was still. Horse and carriage had come to a halt in the square. The cabman had disappeared into a wine-shop. We passed the chilly shadow of the Gothic church on one side of the square.

  Rouletabille glanced at the chateau, with its pink bricks surmounted by vast roofs. The façade looked drab, as though it mourned the fate of its exiled princes. He cast a melancholy eye over the square town hall. He looked at the silent houses, at the Café de Paris (where the officers were wont to meet), at the barber’s shop and the bookseller’s. Was it not here that he had bought his first books paid for by the Lady in Black?